Ask anyone who has been pulling into the corner of Valley Boulevard and Del Mar Avenue for a decade or three, and the new sign out front reads like an alarm. San Gabriel Square, gone. TAWA Gateway, in its place. For a plaza this many households built a weekly routine around, a name change lands like the whole place got sold out from under them.
It didn't. The store that has rung up those grocery runs since 1990 is still there, in the same spot, doing the same job. What actually shifted is everything built around it, and the order in which it shifted is the part worth knowing before your next trip.
The rebrand, in plain terms
The plaza most people still call San Gabriel Square was originally known as Focus Plaza. Sunny Skies Terrace, the commercial real estate firm that owns and operates it, announced back in May 2023 that it would rebrand the roughly 12-acre property at Valley and Del Mar as TAWA Gateway, a direct reference to 99 Ranch Market, the anchor tenant that has occupied the site since 1990. Leasing on the repositioning has been led by Newmark's Howard Wong.
That 2023 announcement was the starting gun, not the finish line. Phase One of the redevelopment only wrapped in June 2026, three years after it was first announced, which tells you something about how this kind of overhaul actually moves. It is not a demolition weekend. It is a slow swap of tenants and finishes while the parking lot keeps functioning and the anchor keeps stocking shelves.
Sunny Skies Terrace runs the same 99 Ranch-anchored model at centers in Chino Hills, Eastvale, Irvine, Rowland Heights, and San Diego. TAWA Gateway is not a one-off experiment. It is this company's standard playbook, applied to the property that happens to be the one you already shop.
What you can already order, as of this month
Fourteen new food, entertainment, and lifestyle tenants are part of Phase One, landing on a staggered schedule through 2026 and into early 2027. Some of them have been open long enough that you have probably already eaten there without registering it as part of a "redevelopment."
| Tenant | What it is | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Marugame Udon | Fresh udon chain | Open, described locally as already a community favorite before the formal Phase One announcement |
| Happy Lamb Hot Pot | Hot pot | Open, occupying the space that used to be Little Sheep |
| Bafang Dumpling | Dumpling counter | Open |
| Show Hot Pot | Hot pot | Open |
| Guiji Tea | Taiwanese fruit tea | Opened February 2026, first-ever U.S. location for the brand |
| Dong Ting Chun | Hunan-style eatery | Reopened as a remodeled flagship in March 2026 |
| Cha Redefine | California artisanal tea and boba | Opened May 2026 |
| Golf Envy | 24/7 indoor golf simulators | Opening September 2026 |
| Kawaii Klaws | Claw machine arcade | Opening January 2027 |
| Soul Escape Room | Escape room experience | Opening March 2027, the brand's second location after its original in Flushing, New York |
Notice the pattern in the timing. The food tenants landed first and closest together, four of them inside a five-month window from February through May 2026. The entertainment tenants are spread further out, into next spring. If you have been wondering why the plaza feels more crowded with new food options but hasn't gotten its promised arcade or golf bays yet, that is why. The rollout is sequenced, not simultaneous.
"TAWA Gateway is more than a redevelopment project, it's an investment in the future of the San Gabriel Valley," said Jonson Chen, Chairman of Sunny Skies Terrace, when the company announced Phase One's completion in June 2026.
The one tenant that never left
Here is the part that got lost in the rebrand headlines. 99 Ranch Market has held this corner since 1990. That is 36 years of continuous tenancy, longer than most of the surrounding retail has existed in any form. The plaza reportedly draws nearly 3 million visitors a year, and that traffic has always run through the same grocery anchor.
When a name changes, the instinct is to assume the identity changed with it. What actually happened is closer to the opposite. Sunny Skies Terrace built its rebrand around the anchor, not despite it. Every other tenant announcement, every renovation phase, every press release about "reclaiming" the plaza's place in the community has used 99 Ranch as the fixed point everything else orbits.
That matters for how you think about the place going forward. The businesses that have closed or moved out over the years were the smaller, more replaceable tenants. The one constant through every version of this plaza, Focus Plaza, San Gabriel Square, now TAWA Gateway, has been the grocery store that gave the new name its meaning in the first place.
What's still coming this fall and beyond
Sunny Skies Terrace has said Phase Two tenant announcements are planned for fall 2026, alongside new landscaping and upgraded exterior areas. That is a matter of weeks away, not months. If Phase One is any guide, expect another wave of food-first announcements before the entertainment tenants finish arriving.
There is also a new dim sum and seafood concept that has been announced but not yet named or dated. The company has described it as aiming to compete with dim sum houses in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, which is a specific enough claim that it is worth watching for when an actual name and opening date surface.
Worth keeping in perspective: the city of San Gabriel's broader retail expenditure runs into the billions annually, a citywide figure that reflects the whole local economy, not this plaza alone. TAWA Gateway is one node in a much larger dining and retail corridor along Valley Boulevard, but it is the node that has been getting the most visible reinvestment this year.
If you're headed there this month
Businesses have stayed open throughout the ongoing capital improvements, so there is no need to time a visit around construction closures the way you might for a full teardown. The practical friction is more about navigating a parking lot and walkways that are mid-renovation rather than finished. If a specific tenant is the reason for the trip, especially one of the newer openings, it is worth a quick check that hours have stabilized post-launch before making the drive, since brand-new locations sometimes adjust schedules in their first few months.
The plaza's identity was never really about its name. It was about being the place where a 36-year-old grocery anchor kept showing up, year after year, while everything around it took its turn getting new paint and new tenants. That part hasn't changed. It's just gotten a new sign to prove it.
If you're the kind of person who tracks how a corridor like this shifts over time, that instinct tends to transfer well to understanding a neighborhood's housing market too. Dina Gonzalez has been following how the San Gabriel Valley's retail and residential layers move together, and is a good resource whenever that curiosity turns into an actual question about the area.
